Swedish file sharers fined

No house searches needed

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Two men who made music and films available for download over the internet have been fined by courts in two separate cases in Sweden on Wednesday, according to Swedish site The Local.

A 44-year-old man from Borås who was prosecuted for making four recordings available of Roxette, Eurythmics, Mauro Scocco and Jakob Hellman, is the first person to be fined in Sweden for sharing music online. A second 32-year-old man from Norrköping has been convicted of making Swedish film Rånarna available online.

The Swedish pro file sharing movement had hoped the judges would look at a similar case in Västerås a few months ago, where the Swedish Court of Appeal decided there was insufficient evidence in a case of a 29-year-old Swedish man suspected of uploading a movie. The only evidence was that his ISP confirmed the IP address belonged to the Västerås man. The Västerås court argued that house searches were needed to prove that file sharing had been carried out from a particular PC.

The Norrköping court now says there should not be a higher burden of proof in file sharing cases. ®